Three Hundred Sixty Five
by OpalescentStorm
Summary: Drabbles from the Naruverse. 8.11.10: When they realized they weren't invincible. Team Guy/Team Gai
1. Haven

AN: Hey there, guys. I'm sorry to admit I don't have much time to be writing, recently. So, in order to keep my ~skills sharp, I'm writing exactly 100 words a day for a year. Even if I can't be on the computer, I'll write it down and type it and upload when I am able to. Because I don't think I'll be able to think up 365 ideas for drabbles, I will accept any requests you guys have. Thanks, and wish me luck!

**1.21.10**

_(January Twenty-First, Two Thousand Ten)_

Dive to the left, jump up. Neji's Jyuuken strike goes over her head and into one man's chest just as Lee executes a perfect high-kick to another foe's head. With a _clink-click_, two of her kunai ricochet off of each other and bury herself into to throats of two more ninja. Roll to the side, back somersault to your feet, lunge forward. This is her favorite thing, what she lives and breathes and bleeds for. Here she is complete and there are no worries in her world, only perfection and trust. Leap high, never slow. She's never been so alive.


	2. Whoever Said Life Was Fair?

**1.22.10**

_(January Twenty-Second, Two Thousand Ten)_

Kushina knows what's going to happen to her darling little boy; she's not stupid. She knows that he's going to be left alone with only a demon, a monster, a horrible creature left inside of him. She and Minato, she recognizes, will die. Something inside of the bright kunoichi twists and rips at her insides, clawing at them as she folds into herself in something akin to guilt and self-pity. She knows all the motions by heart now: Minato's gone, door's locked, silencing jutsu finished. And with the thousandth tear-stained '_why me, why him, why us, why_,' she breaks. Again.


	3. Underestimate Me

AN: Again, guys, I'm asking for any ideas. I wouldn't like to go through this whole thing without any input for drabbles from you guys.

**1.23.10**

_(January Twenty-Third, Two Thousand Ten)_

Underestimation has always been a kunoichi's best friend, and Hinata utilizes this technique better, perhaps, than any other ninja she knows. It's not an intentional thing, of course; far be it from sweet Hinata to mislead someone. Her eyes slide down and to the left, and she bites a delicately pouted bottom lip. There is indecision, giving the opponent plenty of time to decide that this little girl-ninja will never be anything more than a china doll. So a first impression is made, but swiftly swept away by a wave of fierce determination. There's never time for a second impression.


	4. Passive Resistance

AN: (Same thing as last time) Again, guys, I'm asking for any ideas. I wouldn't like to go through this whole thing without any input for drabbles from you guys.

**1.24.10**

_(January Twenty-Fourth, Two Thousand Ten)_

Mikoto knows there's something wrong before the screams even start. It is her love that lets her know something's wrong with Itachi before anyone else guesses. He, a shinobi, hides everything well. But beneath each action is the vague aura of guilt and old, misplaced anger, horribly obvious like the smell of blood now on the floors because within moments every Uchiha, save for her and Sasuke, is dead. She could go down fighting, maybe. Like she would have years ago. But now she is a mother, not a kunoichi, so she smiles beatifically and allows him to murder her.


	5. Captivate Me

AN: (Same thing as last time... and the time before.) Again, guys, I'm asking for any ideas. I wouldn't like to go through this whole thing without any input for drabbles from you guys.

**1.25.10**

_(January Twenty-Fifth, Two Thousand Ten)_

Snakes twine their way through all of her nightmare. Hissing, biting, ensnaring her in coils that try so damn hard to suffocate her. And every morning she wakes up to sweat-soaked sheets and a scream in her throat. So she dresses ostentatiously and carries around a bright smile and several sticks of dango, characteristics of her assumed personality. The real Anko, she supposes, has been lost in coils of Orochimaru's snakes. She knows she will never have the courage to gather the vestiges of herself from the serpents, so she grins ferally (falsely) and fools the world. _Coward, coward, coward._


	6. With These Hands

AN: Haha, looks like I already had to write one down in my ~handy dandy notebook~ and put it up later. Brothers really make it hard to be on the computer! D: By the way, this one's Sakura. I never mentioned her name...

**1.26.10**

_(January Twenty-Sixth, Two Thousand Ten)_

Nn-nn-nn. They murmur in pity if she takes off her gloves. Some even dare to look away. They _dare, how do they __**dare**_? When these hands saved them and their bleeding lovers and their shrieking babies!_ How do they, how do they _dare_?_ Acting like her hands are ugly because the force of chakra and fragments of the ground have torn and infected and scarred the flesh! Her hands are not delicate. But she will be _damned_ if they're ugly. She made herself with these hands. She molded her livelihood, she molded her _life_ with them. _They are fucking beautiful._


	7. Skin Deep

AN: Ino's this one, and the next will be Shizune. Let this be hint to all ye reading: suggestions actually are taken. XD

**1.27.10**

_(January Twenty-Seventh, Two Thousand Ten)_

She can't remember the last time she saw the sun. Days, maybe months, maybe years ago. In a different lifetime, perhaps. Because her once-glowing skin seems pallid and sickly. Because her hair is no longer the color of sunbeams; it seems darker and somehow tinged with a dirty gray. Because her eyes no longer shine but simply stare, an empty gaze reflected into the empty gaze of her mirror image. Who's the fairest of them all? She threw away _fair_ for _accomplished _and _strong _and _deadly_. But because she is Ino, she smiles brightly anyway and reaches for the makeup.


	8. Make up Your Mind

AN: Suggestions, please, folks. :D

**1.28.10**

_(January Twenty-Eighth, Two Thousand Ten)_

Slender fingers tap the tube, coaxing the last bit of liquid into the beaker where a emerald substance bubbles menacingly. A watchful eye, precise hand, and mind for the most minute of details make Shizune a perfect poison maker. Which is ironic, she thinks, because these are the qualities that help her most as a medic-nin. Shizune knows that if she mixes the Koyumi in this instant, her solution will have restorative properties. But if she stirs in Yatsunaki, it will cause instant death. Like her mixture, she herself oscillates between healer and killer. What is it–what is she today?


	9. The Savant

AN: Okay, after this will be Itachi, Gaara, and Hidan. Maybe in that order. Maybe not. See, look, I do write the boys from time to time! XD

**1.29.10**

_(January Twenty-Ninth, Two Thousand Ten)_

He wishes, sometimes, that he could be average: an average ninja of average intelligence and tactical skills. And even as he wishes, the analytical side of him sneers. What would hope change? Nothing can return ignorance to a person, no matter how much he should wish. Even if he acts foolish, there is that place in the back of his mind that _knows_, truly knows. Calculates averages and percentages to know which mission his colleagues won't return from; adds and subtracts until bloodstains mar his vision; knows the most expendable to die and sends them. Knowledge is self-hatred, he knows.


	10. Hurt

AN: Okay, after this will be Itachi and Hidan. Sorry for the wait, by the way. decided it wouldn't be uploading stories. D:

**1.30.10**

_(January Thirtieth, Two Thousand Ten)_

As a child, Gaara is startlingly astute. He doesn't only notice the whispers of the children, the dirty looks that their parents throw his way, but he also catches the tightening of his sister's muscles when he walks through a door, the way his brother's eyes widen almost imperceptibly when he approaches. He doesn't want to be this way, mean to be this way. He wants to sleep, wants to play, wants to love and be loved. But he cannot lose the monster, cannot fight it and its superior power. And they say if you can't beat it, join it.


	11. Time to Lose

AN: Hidan's next. Let it not be said that I don't give the boys some love, too. XD ((Yeah, this is 110 words. D: But I couldn't cut anything else out! I think it can be a little different.))

**1.31.10**

_(January Thirty-First, Two Thousand Ten)_

Itachi can feel the medicine draining slowly out of his body, an aching chasm left in its place. To know that he's been left dependent on drugs, mere substances to delay he death, is laughable. What is good, what saves him, though, is that he is here with his brother once more. Maybe now it's the training he was always too damned busy to do. He always used to think he would have time for his little brother _later._ Always later. Now he would trade a thousand lives, die a thousand deaths just to stay a little longer with his little brother. But he must die; Sasuke must live on.


	12. Fragments

AN: Two months without writing? I don't know what you're talking about... D: Sorry. Hidan's next after this.

**3.28.10**

_(March Twenty-Eighth, Two Thousand Ten) _

Tsunade must awaken. Not because she wants to, but because she has to. Because it is her duty, she must pull herself out of those beautiful hallucinations and back into the real world. But for now she's content to stay a little longer with them. Jiraiya and Orochimaru, that is. They're here with her, and all three are young again, and everything is beautiful and _whole_. But too soon Jiraiya kisses her impudently, and Orochimaru waves, and she feels herself breaking – breaking away. The sun is bright and Shizune is elated but she just wants to be dead and whole.


End file.
